


'𝚝𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚖𝚗 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗

by thesquirrel_alixncvna



Series: mosaic broken hearts [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 'tis the damn season guys, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Christmas, Exes to Lovers, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Idiots in Love, and don't we all, but one specific one, musician!natasha romanov, natasha listens to sweater weather (implied), well many
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesquirrel_alixncvna/pseuds/thesquirrel_alixncvna
Summary: 𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘥'𝘛𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯' 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴' 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸Returning to her hometown for the pinnacle of the holiday season, Natasha did not expect to run back into Steve Rogers.But hey, maybe he could call her babe for the weekend.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Series: mosaic broken hearts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075343
Kudos: 13





	'𝚝𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚖𝚗 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗

**Author's Note:**

  * For [patrocluseva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrocluseva/gifts).



> 'tis the damn season and dorothea by Taylor Swift, that's all I have to say.  
> (oh and disclaimer: some of these metaphors aren't mine, I took them from her lyrics)  
> Enjoy!

Natasha bites her lip, preparing for the discordant groan of scraping metal as she manoeuvres the car inch by inch into a narrow parking space at the end of a row at the lot between the Methodist and the school. When it doesn't come, she slaps the steering wheel in victory, forgetting the next issue of actually leaving the vehicle. Hemmed in as she is by the church wall and neighbouring SUV, it is an unlikely situation where both her and the car emerge without scrapes, and she's unwilling to pay any kind of compensation for damages. After all, what kind of thanks would that be?

The hire car had fortunately kept her anonymous while driving into the town where everybody knows her, and hopefully she can keep it that way. Edging down one of the many crowded motorways that led from the airport to her hometown, like roots to the trunk of a tree, hadn't been the problem; there, she was just another innominate bead sliding down a thread choked with traffic. The problem was when the roads began to narrow and seclude, and then it was only herself and three other drivers who became no longer faceless on roads as titchy as those. Three. Then two, and one, until she was the only car passing the town's welcome sign, which made her smile to herself. That, at least, hadn't changed. 

Unlike the school to her left. It's been refurbished since she was last here, a trying-too-hard-to-be-modern chunk tacked on the side of the old building. The dirty red brick part, hiding under piles of pale concrete blocks, makes the whole construction look a bit like Lego blocks plucked from different sets and jammed together by sheer force. The playground is still just about visible, crowded by stony edifices, and empty. She almost expects some tumbleweed to bounce across the tarmac and painted hop-scotch squares. From here, she can see a forlorn glove impaled on the fence, abandoned in a rush by children eager to get home for the holidays, and probably retrieved by some weary teacher. Something about the image is glum. 

Natasha inhales deeply, sucking in her stomach, and squeezes out without as much grief as she was expecting. Of course, she does have to get back in, and the car has to get out. She's hoping that will be an altogether easier experience. She jams her beanie lower over her ears, pulls the collar of her coat up as a shield against the biting wind, but also as a place to tuck a crimson ponytail. Her sunglasses, an industry favourite, find their place on her nose, as do headphones in her ears. Nothing playing, but it makes her less approachable. The suitcase she unloads from the boot is small, but deceivingly deadly. All she wishes to do is become invisible, but the rumble of a suitcase on uneven streets, especially in a town exempted from all the usual tourist destinations, will practically put a flashing sign on her head screaming _'Look at me!'_. 

If she was being particularly modest, she could admit that she, to some extent, may be exaggerating her own celebrity. But after two years with a steadily increasing magnifying glass over her name and face, she's learnt that there's no place for modesty with eyes everywhere. Cameras, everywhere. Reserve, still. Discretion has become her most valued quality. There may be an epidemic of vanity amongst the 'Somebodies' of this world, but nothing good ever came from undervaluing herself, or her own importance. 

Travelling home for the pinnacle of the holiday season had been a decision taken on a whim. After an exhausting day arguing with executives at SHIELD about new releases, publicity and concert dates in which advocating her rights as a person and not a shiny mirrorball seemed to become the highest imperative, she'd been ready for a heavily liquored holiday. But coming home to a spacious apartment that housed only the one felt wrong. Staring at the contents of her fridge, or lack of thereof, and the many follow-up emails from her label, had instilled such hopelessness in her that she'd just needed to get out of that flat before she did something stupid. One thing that did become easier the bigger her name became was transport, and she was picking up her car rental at Houston airport within a few hours of the whole process. 

The clock on her phone screen tells her it's two o'clock in the afternoon. She keeps her eyes low as she heads out of the car park in the direction of her destination. The eyes she does catch are mainly momentary, or glances of annoyance at the rumble of her case. 

Her eyes remain low as she turns onto her road. That lamppost there is the one she'd careened into as a child, the stabilisers just removed from her bicycle. This spot of pavement scraped most the skin off her knee. And that house- _Oh_. Shit. 

She's pulled from reminiscence and to a stop by a situation taking place on the porch of the next house up. _Her_ house, her childhood home. Her mother stands propping open the front door, submerged in light conversation with- with- _Steve_. 

The rumble of her suitcase has tailed off as she stiffens all over. Hiding in the conifer hedge to her left sounds like a great idea for about three seconds, until it dawns that her feet are like stone, glued to the tarmac, and this coat was expensive. _That_ would certainly be something passersby would attune to. She's so close, under ten feet away, except for the great fucking immovable boulder with no obvious intention of leaving any time soon, and she _really_ doesn't want to have to look that dumpster fire in the eyes. It had been stupid, so stupid, to assume that leaving LA meant saying farewell to _all_ the skeletons in her closet, even if only for a couple of days. Stupid to conveniently fail to recall what a small world it really was, and what her luck had been like as of late. You know what? Had the fates given her an hour, with space to breathe and collect herself, this would've be fine. Nice, even. But the cruelty of it simply being sprung on her like an unexpected page in a pop-up book keeps her locked to the spot. Maybe the hedge was a good idea... Then again, if she stands here any longer, they're going to spot her anyway. 

"Natasha?" Yulia, sure enough, catches sight of her not a moment later, and calls out in astonishment. This forces her feet to finally move, and an only half-fake smile onto her lips. She is happy to see her mother, after all. Steve turns around so fast he must have cricked his neck, she thinks, trailing off in the middle of his sentence.  
"Hi! Surprise, I guess." Natasha pulls her case through the gate with an uncharacteristically bright tone, but stops at the bottom of the drive, smiling apologetically. "I should have called, but..." Steve catches her eyes, like a butterfly in a net, and doesn't let them go.  
"No no, you're fine. In fact..." Her mother's voice turns to a buzz as she says something else Natasha doesn't quite hear, a buzz that ceases when she notices that neither young people are paying attention, instead eyeing each other. Entrapped by his gaze, soft and yet unforgiving in the way that it pins her butterfly to a board as a specimen for him to scrutinise. Right then, she hates him. Hates him for smiling and seeming, if anything, pleased to see her. Hates him for still having full bodily autonomy. Fuck this, where has her _breath_ gone.  
He utters something like a farewell, and strides down the drive looking so goddamn familiar she's convinced the world has reset a couple of years. "Hey, Natasha."  
Her name from his mouth as he passes makes her actively swallow. When she eventually gets a hold of herself, she notices her mother, arms folded in the doorway, eyes flicking between them silently. 

"Is Papa in?"  
Yulia looks like she's still deciding whether to say something, and in the end evidently decides not to, shaking her head resignedly with some flippant muttered Russian phrase Natasha doesn't like the sound of. "Lazy ass is on the couch."  
As always, the gelled back of Ivan Romanov's bald head is the shiniest thing in any room, even with a scrawny tree well strung with golden lights nestled in the corner. Three thin hairs are arranged precisely to lie flat against the harshest of winds.  
"Papa, I'm home," She calls out tentatively. 

Ivan's relationship with his daughter is...tumultuous, at best. On one hand, there was the loving father who took her to every ballet lesson, helped her practice and practice until he knew the steps himself and would buffoon around the living room while she doubled over laughing and who took her out for ice cream after every show. The other hand was the one that struck her across the face and screamed blue murder when he caught her making out with her first girlfriend in the back of the car he'd lent her. The one who tried to burn the notebook with every song she'd ever written in it after the announcement of her departure for LA, said her dreams were folly, and wouldn't she just be happier settling down and giving Steve the children _he'd_ always wanted? (Because her mother was happy, goddammit). 

"Natalia? Oh, welcome home!" Ivan jumps from the couch, striding over to embrace her.  
Yulia clucks on her way to the kitchen. "Well done, Tasha, you're the first thing to get him off that sofa in weeks. His eyes must be square."  
"I did the dishes on Wednesday!" He calls over her shoulder before kissing her forehead.  
"You dried a mug. Tasha, tell him I'm not his slave."  
"Papa, she's not your slave," Natasha repeats dutifully, and means it.  
"No, she's my wife." A flying teatowel slaps him in the shoulder for his cheek.  
"Go and make your daughter a drink, lousy pig." 

Challenging her father's traditionalist ideals is one of the few mountains Natasha has tried and failed to scale in her lifetime, and right now she's so drained from her journey to even attempt a retort ('spunky', he would say, with a chuckle she knew was at her, not with her). 

"Don't bother, I'm going to unpack."  
"Ah, I haven't prepared your room, so it may be messy, but we can clean later. Now, you will eat."  
"Mama..."  
"Look at you." Yulia grips her daughter's chin as Natasha rolls her eyes, and turns it to the side. "No colour. Where's that sun Los Angeles is famous for, eh?" Natasha only shrugs in response. "I made some _bulochki_ yesterday. You will eat, you need it."  
Despite herself, she licks her lips and relents, then kicks off her boots and heads upstairs.

Yulia wasn't kidding about the mess. Her childhood bedroom has become a storage dump. Unlabelled boxes block up her wardrobe and make luxury of the bed, stripped of its clothes. That's what arriving unannounced gets you. However apart from the boxes - which her case joins - her old hideout is mostly intact. Her first proper guitar still hangs on its hook next to the light switch. Washed out by overexposure, the faces of forgotten friends are just about delineable in their photo collage above the head of the bed. She ignores the gaps, pushes away any memory of the love story that used to be tacked there, and her frenzy of erasing any trace the day it was all ripped apart.

Shuffling the boxes on her bed enough to perch on the edge, she starts rifling through the mostly empty bedside table. An old diary with only the first few pages filled, absent-minded metaphors and half-finished thoughts. Its gel pen companion is all dried up when she runs it over the back of her hand. The batteries in that tiny torch had run out before she turned seventeen. Remembering something, she rootles further and triumphantly brandishes her findings. It may be inedible, but the pack of gum taped to the roof of her drawer is still there.

" _Myshka_!" Her mother calls from below. It takes a few seconds to realise that's _her_ summon.  
"You can't call me that anymore, look at me," Natasha says as she walks into the kitchen and takes a heated _bulochku_.  
"I see you. Still my _myshka_."  
Rolling her eyes, but secretly pleased inside, she arranges her face into nonchalance for her next question. "So...why was Steve here?" Yeah, that failed, and Yulia notices it, but doesn't comment.  
"Asking if we wanted to have dinner with them this evening. It's Christmas Eve, and they thought we'd be alone. Wasn't right, he said."  
Natasha is silent.  
"They're family friends, Tasha. What happened between you and Steve is-"  
"In the past." Even Natasha winces at her forceful tone, and softens her voice. "It was mutual," _Right_. "I've moved on." _Uh huh_. "It's fine." 

You know what? This is fine. Good, even. Gives her a chance to show him that he doesn't reduce her to a mess of a dreamer anymore, because he doesn't get to do that. He doesn't get to look like that. Carefree, when her recovery was slow and painful and volatile. Golden and healed, when she'd mended the remains of her heart (that she broke, no less) with glue and sticky tape and it still fucking showed. Thinking she'd be cocooned in the house the whole weekend, she hadn't packed anything nice. Shame. _Is it? We're not firing on all cylinders for his approval, for Pete's sake_.

The only semi-presentable thing in her case is a long-sleeved shin-length cerulean jersey dress and belt. Not anything special, but it wasn't joggers and a ratty hoodie, so there was that.

Winter evenings in mid-west towns are temperate by nature, so although the air elicits goosebumps, no one's wrapped up in ski gear and her bare legs are fine. They set out for the Rogers' abode at six. Natasha's desire to blend unnoticed into the background does not seem to have occurred to Yulia and Ivan, so keeping her head down becomes very ineffectual very quickly, but their delight and pride at her return is so palpable she doesn't have the heart to rectify their gregarious behaviour. She finds herself exhibited to the butcher, her old headteacher (hadn't Coulson moved to Dallas years ago, for god's sake?), Yulia's bingo buddies (who coo and pinch her cheeks like she isn't twenty six years old) and Pietro Maximoff, of all people. She suspects that hasty autograph will be on eBay by tonight.

Walking a little more unapologetically, Natasha notices the little things as they walk through the town, the things that have changed, and those that never will. The quaint high street is slowly being monopolised by chain stores. People, some she doesn't recognise, and those she does are older. Her memories of childhood are sepia, and she sifts through them like photographs bleached with age, tatty and fading in places she'd prefer to remember. The hairdresser who slipped her free lollipops that stained your tongue scarlet for three days, what was her name? That drain lid - known for its tendency to fall through - that those born and bred here instinctively knew to skip over. Where was it, again? Right at the alleyway entrance? No, outside the newsagents. No...

The Rogers' family home is calmingly identical, at least from the exterior. Deck protruding at the front of the house, steps leading up to the porch. Even the windvane nailed to the roof is the same. A stylishly refurbished kitchen and extended rear conservatory makes the interior a little different from her last visit, though. Joseph Rogers answers the door, ushers them in with a bright smile in Natasha's direction, which she appreciates, and returns as best she can. Sarah is just pulling a steaming lasagna from the oven as they step through, and acknowledges their presence with a sharp, excited exclamation. Steve emerges onto the landing above, smiling as he descends the stairs and comes to a stop in front of them. He shakes Ivan's hand firmly, kisses her mother on the cheek. There's an awkward moment when he turns to her and doesn't know what to do, so she holds her hand up, as if for a high five. _I cannot believe you just did that_. The regret is immediate. He seems surprised, but doesn't leave her hanging. She half wishes he did - then passing it off as an itch or something might have been plausible (at a stretch, don't kid yourself). _Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot_.

Brushing the elephant in the room under the carpet seems to be the best course of action, and that's what their parents do, hastily passing into the kitchen-dining area as Sarah dishes up. Natasha starts to follow, pulling at her clothes in an attempt to look busy, but Steve's next words yank her back like a fish on a line.

"You look good."  
And it's stupid, because her confidence blows up like a helium balloon and her cheeks glow and her body starts fizzing in a way she doesn't like, in a way it shouldn't. She just nods, mouth dry. "You too."  
He does. It's unfair, in fact. The couple of years has only put more brawn on him, and the stubble growing with intention does _nothing_ to harm the profile. _Fuck_.

Where childhood memories are sepia, her time with Steve is flushed rose. Not Kool-Aid crimson, or cherry like her lips. Rose. The blush in the heavens before the sun is fully retired. The tincture it spills where the sky meets the sea. The colour of a feeling too good to be true and the greed that chased its fluttering coattails, as if all the time in the world wouldn't be enough, as if the rest of their lives was inadequate. The colour of plaid shirt days and heady nights with his hands up in her hair... _Don't get distracted_.

Whether Sarah placed their plates next to each other on purpose is irrelevant. What matters is that dinner is pleasant. More than that, it's enjoyable, entertaining, when she allows herself to relax at the reminder that she knows these people, and they know her. In the most intimate ways possible. It's not a business transaction over gourmet recipes she can't pronounce, or a tidy lunch with a journalist, where she has to measure every centimetre of her awareness. She doesn't have to weigh up her words, or count her breaths, or monitor the way she sits. The Rogers have the grace not to refer to her increasingly public profile, or her life outside of their home at all really. For the first time in years, Natasha feels like herself. Human, for a change. Not the musical talent taking the charts by storm. Not even Steve's ex-lover. Just Natasha. Like before. (A _long_ time before, mind you).

Steve is just as she remembers. Affable. Sheepish, when she catches him staring more than once. Pure as driven snow at first glance, but she's caught off guard by his nimble wit, and the devilish glint in his eye that used to drive her crazy and has to remind herself that there's more to him than the face-value virtuous American man persona. His sweet disposition isn't a disguise, more a red herring, a subversive plot.

"What's it _supposed_ to be?" Natasha glances pointedly at the napkin Steve is folding next to her.  
"What, doesn't it look like a swan?"  
"A swan?" She ducks and leans a little, to get a different perspective. "No, still a cone."  
He sits back, as if pleased with his work. "It's abstract impressionism."  
She bites back a grin. "Oh, obviously."  
"Look, here are the wings." He gestures to two flaps on either side of the figure.  
"Evolution did not serve this swan well."  
Something about the way he shrugs and sighs sympathetically, as if pitying the thing while wiping his mouth with it makes her chest hurt.

"-we just can't work out how to fix it."  
"Just send in the squirrels to take care of the problem." Natasha only catches the tail end of Joseph's workplace ramble, but she's close enough to hear Steve's low mutter, and it's disarming enough that she chokes on her wine and bursts into a bout of hiccupped laughter, napkin clamped over her mouth, before she realises that everyone except Steve (who seems delighted) is giving her a puzzled look.  
"Remember-"  
"In the-"  
"No one's got that in years!" Steve joins her in laughter this time.  
Joseph interjects. "I'm sorry...Squirrels?"  
"It's an inside joke," They assure simultaneously and then look away, cheeks warming.  
"I see."

By the time cutlery is parallel on every plate, any awkwardness is dissolved by spirits and good old goddamn Christmas cheer. Except for when she addresses Sarah as 'Mrs Rogers' in her expression of gratitude, and there's a pause. Sarah seems almost pained for a moment. Steve clears his throat, and Natasha curses herself.  
"It was delicious, Ma."

It was 'Sarah', always 'Sarah', always had been. Not even when they first met had any formalities been undertaken. First-name basis was pressed gladly into her palm, and uneasily practised until it felt natural.  
But then...She doesn't get to do that anymore. Shouldn't be allowed, at any rate. To say that name would be to pass as family, which she's not. She's an outsider. That pass isn't hers. She doesn't _deserve_ it.

After dinner, they mill. Joseph insists on doing his bit in the kitchen, and Yulia clucks unashamedly at Ivan while he rolls his eyes. Excusing herself for a moment, Natasha steps out onto the raised plank porch for some air, cool on her skin and prickling in the way it makes the hairs on the back of her neck erect. Or maybe that was Steve behind her, who knows. She feels him before she sees him. The sly smile and hands shoved deep in his pockets has an air of anticipation that sets alarm bells ringing in her head. He's about to say something _dumb_.

"So hey, I loved your album."  
"Ugh," Natasha whacks him, cringing. "Nonono, we are not doing that."  
"I'm being serious!" His grin tells her he's sincere, but fucking with her all the same.  
"Not the point. I travelled halfway across the country to get away from that shit."  
Steve chuckles. "Honestly, I'm surprised we can even stand in the open. The paparazzi really aren't pulling their weight." She rolls her eyes, tutting. "Hey! We have a chart topper over here!" He yells out into the night and she reacts by instinct, almost knocking over her wineglass balanced on the wooden balustrade in her haste to fling a hand over his mouth.  
"Stop it!" His hands raise in surrender, cackling into her hand. "Not funny."  
"Can you even go to the supermarket anymore?"  
"Yes! Well...Sometimes. I'm seriously not that big, not really."  
"Your name went up in lights months ago, you are that big." He nudges her shoulder. "And you deserve it, Nat."  
Secretly glowing inside, she tuts again. _He liked it_. And then: _oh fuck, he liked it_.

"How is LA?"  
"Oh, the glitz and glam is real, and so are the fake niceties. It's not home." Twisting her bracelet on her wrist starts to become a necessity to stop her hands jittering. "But it's sunny, and I get to do what I love." _Which couldn't be you. I'm sorry_.  
"You ever think about your old pal Rogers?"  
Her next words stick in the back of her throat, but she forces them, like Sisyphus' boulder, off her tongue. "You were more than a pal, Steve." She sips her wine. He quietens. 

_You were everything_. 

It's certainly starting to feel that way.

"I know." He does. Is painfully reminded of it at the worst of times. Like now. They stand so close, yet so far. Before everything, he would have put his jacket around her shoulders even if she wasn't cold, because his clothes just looked _better_ on her. Maybe they'd've taken advantage of the private moment and shared some breaths, lips pressed together like it was going out of fashion. But those people are gone.

"Your mum didn't like me calling her 'Mrs Rogers'."  
Steve makes an impatient sound and she stiffens all over.  
"You were like her _daughter_ , Nat. Or you were going to be, at least." Her heart stutters at the first tinge of melancholy in his voice, and she doesn't speak for a moment.

In another life, Steve would've gone with her. In the life where Sarah wasn't battling breast cancer and she had the optimism to insist their relationship could survive the jump, maybe he would've gone with her. She won't pretend they were perfect, because they weren't. They loved like they were insane, in silent screams and wildest dreams, but it's all fun and games until somebody loses their mind, and in this case it was like losing grip on sinking ships. Steve had responsibilities - Joseph couldn't care for Sarah alone - and Natasha wanted to be there, she did. When he got on one knee and held up the ring, rose gold twining around a squeak of a diamond, she was so happy she could have died. Pulled him up by his tie and assented between kisses. Delayed the secret plans forming in the back of her mind by a while, just until Sarah got better (because she _would_ , she had to) and their fairytale wrote itself down in the moments they weren't watching. Except their daydream was a nightmare all dressed up.

Her guitar, and her notebook, and the email from that agent who'd seen that one singing video on the internet that one time kept staring at her, scalding her thoughts until the possibilities were painful. Nothing could soothe her restlessness. There was so much she wanted to do. She wanted to be recognised. Natasha wanted to loneliness of writing for oneself to end. So they fought about the future, and when she was done screaming about how this town was scraping her out, she slid the promise off her finger and dropped it back into his hand in what felt like slow motion, or the growl of a well-timed thunderclap.  
"This isn't the end, is it?" He'd choked out, weeping without shame.  
"Goodbye, Steve." His ashen pleads made the black grief in her heart enough to spill into the storm in a scream and hope it swallowed her cries.

Whispering sceptics sharpened their knives behind her back. Those who were convinced she was a dead loss, useless as a glass hammer without him, that she should put the brains that earned her golden grades to use rather than nugatory dreams.  
"How long can it last?", they asked.  
"How long is a piece of string?", was her reply. In other words, as long as she made it.  
"She would've made such a lovely bride, what a shame she's fucked in the head," they said, her father among them. And Natasha had had nothing to say to that except curses. Oh, how she'd cursed them. Narrow-minded, loathsome cockroaches making a feast out of the corpse of her relationship with Steve.

The agent came to nothing, as it turned out, but by sheer luck and (she hoped) talent, she was able to wrangle a deal as a songwriter. Goddammit, she thought it would make her happy. Fulfilled, at least. And it did, for a while. But it was limited happiness when there was no one to share it with. No friends to clink glasses with when a song she'd penned made it to the top 20 on US charts for weeks and weeks at a time, or when finally, they signed _her_ voice to be the one singing them. No lover to champion her when the first wave of cynical press and doubt washed over. No Steve. All Natasha felt was _lonely_. Aching, neverending loneliness that sat at the pit of her stomach, blocked the arteries in her heart. Her dolour became habitual. She embraced it. It put her to work.

It was worth it, she knew that. It had to be. At the end of the day, when she got to walk out onto a stage with her guitar and her Dr. Martens and have a crowd scream her lyrics back at her, it was worth it. Even when it all seemed for nothing (because she had everything, but she didn't have him) it was worth it.

"It means a lot." Natasha pulls herself out of the mire back into the present and sips her drink, trying to lessen the tension. "That you liked it."

Steve bought the CD the day it came out. Ignored the eyebrow raise from the cashier. Sat in the truck they used to make out in, the one with the muddy tyres. Put his feet up on the dash the way he'd always scolded her for. Folded his hands over his stomach. Closed his eyes, and listened. Pretended she was right there with her guitar, singing to him like she used to, in pyjamas and the fluffy pink slippers he gave her that she insisted she hated, even if she wore them every day. There was one song he couldn't get through, that he still skips every time, the quiet acoustic one he knew all the words to before the first strum came through. The one that started on an old napkin from McDonalds, and is his only remaining footage to prove they were ever happy. That a 'they' even existed. He tried to delete it. He tried. Even pressed the button. But it drew him back in on a line an hour later to retrieve it, because he couldn't let it go.

Steve tells Natasha none of this.

"They all wanna be you, y'know."  
"Hmm?"  
"All the people who mocked you. They all wanna be ya."  
"Fame's not all it's cut out to be, I wonder if they know that."  
"Well if you're ever tired of being known for who you know, you know you'll always know me." That tweaks a smile back onto her mouth, especially when she sees his despondency hide back away (for she's convinced it's always there, just selectively on display).

"Remember when we skipped prom, just to piss off your mum?"  
"Sat behind the bleachers and made a lark out of our own misery." _Rose_.  
He holds the door for her and tries not to dwell on the fact that everything she says is poetry.

" _Natashkaya_ , there you are. It's getting late, time to go," Her mother calls.

This time, he takes no preamble in farewells, and kisses her gloved hand - Natasha feels a fizzle deep inside.

Yulia and Ivan don't probe her silence on the walk back, for which she is grateful, nor to they question her quick goodnights. Luckily, her mother had organised her room before they left, so her throat is no longer clogged with dust when she steps in, just wanting to be alone. Alone with world-ending realisations and the way her heart thuds too loudly in her chest. After all this time, she wants him. Still can't get enough of him. Still wants him to ravish her. Fuck you, Steve Rogers. _Fuck you very much_.

Mind whirling, Natasha unhooks the long-unused guitar from the wall, grabs her notebook and sets up a voice memo. The guitar takes a little tuning before she can run her fingers over familiar strings, playing with notes. One chord leads to another and soon she has a half-melody. The words pour out of her before she even knows what they mean. But reading them back, she does.

>%<

Finding her scarf had been by chance. Steve was heading out anyway without really knowing why, just certain that seeing her again tonight was an imperative. It was compulsion to a religious extent. Magnetism so strong he felt his heart would follow even if he didn't. Finding her scarf folded forgotten over the back of the sofa was just his excuse.

It smells like her.

Yulia's surprise is obvious when she opens the door, obviously irritated at such a late-night interruption - on Christmas Eve, no less.  
"Natasha left her scarf at our house."  
"Oh. Thank you." She reaches for it, but something keeps him holding on, hesitant.  
"Can _I_ give it to her?" As he suspected, her eyebrows shoot up. Yulia eyes him, judging. Then steps to the side wordlessly.

Steve treads up her stairs carefully, quietly, dancing over the floorboards he knows will creak, like he did those heady nights she snuck him in and out before suspicion could even plant his seeds. 

Her door isn't quite closed, so he stands for a second, peering through the crack. She's beautiful, drawing out arpeggios that touch desolation in his mind, the pick between her lips. From here, he can see the scars on her palms from snapped strings, or when she would play until they bled. Her t-shirt slips over her shoulder, and he gulps at the exposed skin. Tries to look anywhere but the mole on her shoulder, and decides that knocking sooner rather than later would be best. Natasha jolts like she's been wrenched out of a trance, and her mouth falls open.

"You, uh, forgot your scarf." He was wrong. Standing front of her, there's so much to say, but the words don't come.  
Natasha stands and takes it wordlessly.  
"Nice tune." He's just starting to think this was a really bad idea when she wavers, and then takes the plunge.  
"Could you just...listen, for a second? I have a verse, and a chorus, and...I wanna say something."  
Then he's the speechless one as she sits, hurriedly adjusting her fingers to get the tune back.

For just a time, she wants to forget all the things that kept them apart. All the differences in future (he needed to stay, she wanted to leave; he was happy, she hadn't been that it a long time) they had, all the _reasonable_ and _sustaining_ reasons they splintered from each other that are allowed to seem stupid in the eyes of a hopeful.

" _I parkеd my car right between the Methodist  
And thе school that used to be ours  
The holidays linger like bad perfume  
You can run, but only so far  
I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave  
But if it's okay with you, it's okay with me_

_We could call it even  
You could call me babe for the weekend  
'Tis the damn season, write this down  
I'm stayin' at my parents' house  
And the road not taken looks real good now_

_Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tyres  
Now I'm missing your smile, hear me out  
We could just ride around  
And the road not taken looks real good now  
And it always leads to you in my hometown,  
It always leads to you in my hometown..._"

Steve doesn't even wait for the last couple of notes. "Deal."  
Her eyes open wide and heartened."...Really? I-"  
"Deal." 

He extends a hand. Natasha takes it, bright eyed like the moon and stars in the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be part of a series of oneshots taken at different points throughout out this 'verse, so stay tuned for updates!  
> Comments and kudos are appreciated x


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